Interview D.K. Deters Author of Christmas Once Again

Happy holidays to all! Give a big welcome to D.K. Deters, author of Christmas Once Again. Have a seat and grab an insulated mug. I’ve got hot chocolate, hot cider and coffee. Choose your pot, they’re labeled. Pick your choice of a Snicker-doodle, Chocolate Chip or Peanut butter cookie from the plate. Yep, I baked them myself. Lets find out a little about D.K. and see what Christmas Once Again is all about. Thanks for joining us!

Hi Tena. Thanks for having me.

What inspired this particular story?

I was watching a news broadcast about ordinary people pitching together to save a stranger’s life. It got me to thinking about how one selfless act could be life-changing. Since I always get sentimental around the holidays, a Christmas romance felt right.

 What makes you laugh out loud?

By far, those hilarious everyday events that we couldn’t have orchestrated even if we tried.  Check out my favorite holiday memory below.

 What is your favorite Christmas tradition?

It’s hard to pick just one, but we love it when our children and their families can make it home for Christmas.

Why did you choose the cover concept you did?

The cover artist asked me to pick two significant elements from the story. I chose a missing painting, which may or may not have special powers and a cabin in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.

Favorite holiday memory?

When my son was in kindergarten, he played Santa in a grade school holiday program. Classmates took on the roles of the reindeer, all decked out with cute little pipe cleaner antlers and connected with holiday garland.

At the back of the auditorium, they waited for their cue. My son held on to the reins (the garland) while standing inside Santa’s sleigh (a big box with a shoulder harness.) The eight tiny reindeer took off at a run with their sites on the stage. As Santa hustled along at top speed, his beard and pointy hat bouncing, the sleigh slid forward and tilted up as if could fly. Now Santa couldn’t see ahead, and he had to rely on his reindeer to get him past the audience. In a flurry, the children arrived center stage to laughter and applause.

I still chuckle when I think about it. (And thank goodness, no one was injured.)

SPEED ROUND FOR A LITTLE ADDED FUN:

Speed Round (one word only answer): Yep, I know torture for a writer!<evil laugh>

Favorite Christmas movie: Serendipity

Favorite Christmas book: Elf
Last Christmas or holiday book read: Elf
Favorite color: Red
Stilettos or flipflops or elf shoes: Flipflops
Coffee or tea or hot chocolate: Coffee
Ebook or audiobook or paperback: Ebook
Pencil or pen or candy cane: Pen

Favorite Christmas Carole or song: Mistletoe

All-time favorite Christmas present: Ring

Favorite dessert: Pie

Christmas Candy or Cake: Candy

Favorite thing to do to relax during the holidays Read

Champagne or gin or eggnog: Champagne

Paranormal or Historical: Historical

Wonder Woman or Top Model or Tinkerbell: Wonder Woman

Favorite Christmas or holiday TV show: Disney

Hot or cold: Hot

POV: Third

I’d die if I don’t have: Coffee

Review or Not: Review

Click on the cover to read more or purchase!

Tell us a little about Christmas Once Again.

She’s dead broke. And eviction looms. On Christmas Eve antique consultant Madison Knight takes a phone call from local rancher Zach Murdock. Through a mix-up at an estate sale, Madison’s company purchased his grandmother’s beloved painting. He offers double the money for its return.

Madison risks her job to track down the artwork, but success falls short when she’s stuck in a blizzard. Stranded, she seeks help from a frontier family. Are they living off the grid, or did she somehow travel through time?

Zach’s the only person who knows her plan. He also knows a secret about his gran’s painting. It’s up to him to rescue Madison, but maybe he’s not cut out to be a hero.

How about a sneak peek between the pages of Christmas Once Again?

“My grandmother had an estate sale last week, and she didn’t want it sold, unfortu—”

“Oh?” She should’ve kept quiet. Run-ins with greedy family members happened in the antique business, and a judging attitude didn’t increase revenues.

“It wasn’t on purpose,” he said. “The day was chaotic, and someone had shuffled around the artwork. We didn’t realize it was missing until a couple of days ago, and it took this long to sort out the mix-up and discover your shop bought it.”

She felt guilty for jumping to the wrong conclusion. “I see how that could happen. It’s obvious the piece is treasured by your grandmother. If it becomes necessary, we have the resources to find a similar style. Is there a specific artist or significance?”

Held hostage by the slow computer response and trying not to rush him, she picked up one of the hand weights, intending to fit in a few curls.

“Keep in mind Gran’s ninety-two, and she thinks…”

“Uh-huh.” With her free hand, she grabbed the latte and took a sip.

“Gran thinks it holds a special power.”

Madison chose that moment to swallow, and the creamy espresso went down the wrong pipe. A dry, hacking cough followed, and she dropped her hand weight, which thudded on the carpet. For heaven’s sake, he didn’t hear her, did he?

You can purchase Christmas Once Again at:  Amazon    The Wild Rose Press   Barnes & Noble

About the Author:

D.K. Deters credits her parents, who grew up in southeastern Kansas, for inspiration to write about the Old West. From an early age, the likes of Jesse James and the Dalton Gang were often included in family lore. To this day, she’s not sure how much is true.

After earning a Bachelor of Science in Business, D. K. followed a profession in the telecommunications industry before turning to a writing career. When she’s not writing, she enjoys spending time with her adult children and their families.

D.K.  loves to hear from readers and other authors!

Email: dkdetersauthor@hotmail.com

Social Media:

Website: www.dkdeters.com

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/dk_deters

Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/dkdeterscom

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/d-k-deters

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18486948.D_K_Deters

Thank you for having me on your blog. Happy Holidays!

It was wonderful having you with us today. Enjoy your holidays and don’t drink too much egg nog. LOL  Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Christmas Once Again!

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Discussion with Nancy Gideon Author of Prince Of Dreams

Give a spooktacular welcome to Nancy Gideon author of Prince of Dreams.  Today she’s graciously agreed to talk about Vampires verses Werewolves in honor of upcoming All Hallows! Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cauldron. Take your choice of a bat wing Chocolate Chip or Pumpkin, or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about  Nancy Gideon and her Prince of Dreams  as well as her take on Vampires and Werewolves.  Pssst…Don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter at the bottom of the post.  

 
Team Vampire vs Team WereWolf
I’ve always loved a dark, tormented hero, the kind that roams freely on Halloween!
And I’ve been torn since my first introduction to late night horror films – Vampire or werewolf (later shapeshifter). Though both were technically villains, the undead or unnatural that needed to be destroyed for preying upon humanity, I always found their tragic story . . . romantic. Denied the light of day or fearing the loss of control wrought by the cycle of the moon, instead of getting the woman of their dreams, these antiheroes got the short of the stick—usually sharp and through the heart. Not fair, but how the story always goes. Then Hollywood, and finally fiction, began a subtle change when 50s heartthrob Michael Landon wolfed out in “I Was A Teenage Werewolf” and squealing bobbysoxers vied to put him on their leash.  I didn’t notice until Frank Langella took up Dracula’s cape, becoming one HOT dead guy! He was charming, educated, and had it hands down over the second-string Jonathan Harker. But love never triumphed at the end of their stories. 
No happily ever after for them.
Maybe it was Dark Shadows, the campy ‘60s vampire soap opera that finally broke tradition. Barnabas and Quentin Collins had fans swooning for a chance to save them from their cursed lives. As vampire and werewolf, they were portrayed as victims worthy of redemption. When “The Kindred” came out as a nighttime saga about strong warring supernatural families (and later, “The Originals”), I was sold on heroes both fang and fur. Those were the larger-than-life heroes I wanted helming my books, beginning with Louis Radman, mourning his lost humanity in my “Touched by Midnight” vampire series, then Max Savoie, top dog in my “By Moonlight” shapeshifter books and the yummy Terriot princes in the “House of Terriot” spin-off (PRINCE OF DREAMS is just releasing!). Smart, loyal and deadly, (and it doesn’t hurt-gorgeous!), it’s their very difference that draws their strong heroines . . . and readers. Something about tall, dark and dangerous with a bite . . . especially when the moon is full and the season is All Hallows!
“I’m right there with you Nancy!”
Now tell us a bit about Prince of Dreams – House of Terriot,Book Four
Written in the cards . . . Who was this guy, her rescuer, her hero, her knight in shining 2-carats?
Kip . . . Prince in the shapeshifter House of Terriot
He’d said he wasn’t a mobster. . . She should have asked if he was a monster.
Who was this too good to be true, always ready in a crisis guy working a menial job for her father? Ophelia knew things. Something was not quite normal about the Kip Terriot hiding behind another name in lace-up dress shoes and a preppy wardrobe – something wild and exciting as all hell. A dangerous something calling to that restless difference in her own soul.
Ophelia . . . daughter of his enemy, girl of his dreams
So sassy, so sweet so perfect . . . and what he had to do would destroy her.
Kip was in New Orleans to save his clan and his kind, not to play white knight for Ophelia Brady with her quirky habits, curvy body and tormented past. His deception would rip the heart from her world, not help heal it. Was his family’s nemesis using his own daughter to make Kip the played instead of the player, pulling him between love and duty to make an impossible choice?
“Emotionally captivating! A brilliant conclusion to a unique series!” – Book Bling
 

 

A peek between the pages of Prince of Dreams . . .

An unnatural being from a family of shapeshifters.

Even now Ophelia didn’t know whether to laugh or weep at the absurdity of it. Things like that didn’t exist. Except she knew they did, just outside the peripheral, where worlds of fact and fiction met and mingled and blurred. She’d felt their presence in the shadows of reality all her life. She met them in her dreams and visions.

Kip Terriot gave them gorgeous face and form, but underneath, he was that creature with red eyes and sharp teeth. Her big, bad wolf, who’d protected her from a robber and defended her from abuse, who’d rescued her sister from the attack she still refused to acknowledge. Who loved his family and would do anything for them?

Who she loved too much to let go but couldn’t give what he needed because she wasn’t his kind.

Which was the greater fear, what he was or that she’d fail him?

“What are we going to do, Phe? I don’t want to lose this.” He brought her knuckles to his lips for a kiss.

“I don’t want to lose you. But I already have, haven’t I? You’re a million miles away right now and almost out of reach.”

“I’m right here.” His argument brought her to him, her knees stepping over his lap to straddle him, arms circling his shoulders, face nestling against the curve of his throat where she rode his hard swallow. He held tight, trying to believe they could make this moment last, this glorious, fiery, tender moment that offered so much and promised so little.

“You are my prince,” she whispered, breath moist and soft against his neck. “My Prince of Cups. You rode into my life bringing romance, shaking my world to its foundation that first night I met you. It was in the cards.”

“Fate,” he murmured, smile in his voice. “No escaping it.” His fingers threaded through her hair, pulling back gently to tip up her face, offering sweetly parted lips and glistening eyes.

He’d planned a sweet kiss but the taste of urgency and need in the sweep of her tongue ruined that noble ambition. They feasted upon one another for long, desperate minutes until she rocked back, thumb swiping the dampness from his mouth.

“Go, be who you need to be for them. Then come back and be who I need you to be.

About the Author:

Nancy Gideon is the award-winning bestseller of over 65 romances ranging from historical, regency and series contemporary suspense to dark paranormal and horror, with a couple of produced screenplays and non-fiction writing books tossed into the mix.
A legal assistant for a brilliant criminal attorney in Central Michigan (when not at the keyboard working on her latest book in progress), she feeds a Netflix addiction along with all things fur, fin and fowl and dotes on her grandguy.
Nancy’s also written under the pseudonyms Dana Ransom, Rosalyn West and Lauren Giddings. Look for reissues coming soon under those pen names!

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It was wonderful having you with us today.  Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Prince of Dreams!

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Early Halloween Treat from Laura Buckle Author of Flesh!

  Today I have a treat from Laura Bickle. Give her a warm welcome, Laura is the author of Flesh! Never to early for Halloween tricks and treats.
Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cauldron. Take your choice of a bat wing Chocolate Chip or Pumpkin, or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about Laura and her Flesh!  See what I did there. You know you want to laugh! Pssst…Don’t forget to enter the Rafflecopter at the bottom of the post. 
Lets start with Laura’s Halloween craft project for you do it your selfers (Is that even a word?) I’m excited to make a few Halloween Luminaries myself.
 
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and I love making decorations
for this time of year. I looked around at the materials I had rolling around my
craft room and raided the displays at the dollar store to come up with some
Halloween luminaries to perch in my windows.
For this project, I used:
·
Two wide-mouth jars
·
A plastic witch
·
A plastic ghost
·
Black sand
·
Glue gun and glue sticks
·
Plastic spider rings
·
Ribbon
·
Two LED light strings – I used pumpkins and bats
I already had the jars, glue, spiders, and ribbon, but found the LED
lights, sand, witch, and ghost at my local dollar store. So I’ve invested about
five bucks in this project. I won’t too feel
bad if it doesn’t turn out!
First thing I did was stuff the witch in
a jar and the ghost in jars. I had originally intended to use mason jars, but I
didn’t have any with mouths wide enough to squeeze the plastic sculptures
through. So I used some plastic jars I had handy. I settled the witch and ghost
in their new homes, then poured some black sand around their feet to simulate
ground. You could also use glitter or black salt or fine pebbles.
Then I put some batteries in my lights and tested them out. I think
that I could use fairy lights for this step, too, but I liked the bats and
pumpkins.
I arranged the light strings in the jars. I used a pencil to push them
around so that they showed most clearly from the front. I made sure that the
tail of the light string, with the battery pack, extended outside of the jars. I
wanted to be able to turn my luminaries on and off and change batteries without
digging the whole string out of the jar, though you could leave it in the jar,
too. Here’s what they looked like:
  

 

Then, I screwed on the lids. Since my lids were plastic, they didn’t
damage the thin wire. I made sure that the wire fed out the back side of the
jar. If I needed more room, I would have cut out part of the lid or put the
pack behind the figure inside the jar, but this seemed to work fine with these
materials.
 

 

 
I cut two lengths of ribbon and fished out a couple of spider rings
from the bag of spiders. I cut the ring part off the spiders so that they would
lie flat.
I made a bow with each ribbon and glued one to the top of each jar. In
the center of the bow, I glued a spider.
And I was done! Here’s what my finished luminaries look like:
I can’t wait to put these in my window on Halloween!

Tell us a little about your book Flesh
Laura Bickle
Genre: YA Horror/Paranormal/Fantasy
Book Description:
The dead are easy to talk to. Live people, not so much.
Charlie Sulliven thinks she knows all the secrets of the dead. Raised in a funeral home, she’s the reluctant “Ghoul Girl,” her reputation tied to a disastrous Halloween party. But navigating her life as a high school sophomore is an anxiety-inducing puzzle to her. She haunts the funeral home with her parents, emo older brother, Garth, their pistol-packing Gramma, and the glass-eyeball-devouring dachshund, Lothar.
Chewed human bodies are appearing in her parents’ morgue…and disappearing in the middle of the night. The bodies seem tied to a local legend, Catfish Bob, who has resurfaced in the muddy Milburn river near Charlie’s small town. When one of Charlie’s classmates, Amanda, awakens in the cooler as a flesh-eating ghoul, Charlie must protect her newfound friend and step up to unravel the mystery…and try to avoid becoming lunch meat for the dead.
A sneak peek between the pages of Flesh!

“Amanda, I…Oh.”

I don’t know what else to say. My brain just shuts down.

She is wearing the sheet, wound around her like a toga. It trails behind her bare feet, sort of like a painting about Greek goddesses I’ve seen in art books. She’s leaning over another body stored in the cooler unit on a cart. Her back is to me, and I can only see her pale skin and her burgundy-black hair shuddering.

“Amanda.”

She turns at the sound of my voice, seeming only to hear me for the first time. Her face is covered in dark blood. In her hand, she’s holding a big chunk of purple flesh. Her eyes are half-closed. The autopsy incision on the elderly body below her has been ripped open, and I’m pretty sure that what she’s holding is a lung.

“So hungry…” she murmurs.

I retreat until my back presses against the cold door. A whimper escapes my lips, and I drop the laundry basket with a sharp crack of plastic on the tile floor. This has to be a dream. A screwed-up anxiety dream that I’ll wake up from any moment now…

Amanda’s black eyes snap open. She stares at the chunk of flesh in her hand. “I…Agh…What’s going on?”

Lothar waddles over to her and begins to beg. Bile rises in my throat. “That’s Mrs. Canner,” I manage to answer. “She’s seventy-two and died of surgery complications for varicose veins. Deep vein thrombosis, I think. I don’t remember.” I’m babbling, trying to keep the bile down.

Amanda drops the lung with a wet splat. Lothar scrambles to it and begins scarfing it down. Her hands are trembling. She presses them to her temples. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

I nudge the laundry basket closer to her with my foot. “I brought you some clothes. And, um. Food. You should get dressed.”

I think I should be afraid. I think I really ought to be. But Amanda seems genuinely confused. She reaches for the clothes I’ve brought her. To be polite, I know that I should really look away. But I can’t move. I am not turning my back on her. My heart pounds, and I struggle to take deep, uneven breaths.

Amanda unwinds the sheet and slips into my clothes. Though I avert my eyes, I see that her shoulder and side are still torn open. But my mother hasn’t begun the autopsy yet, so there is no Y-incision across her chest and abdomen.

“Do you remember what happened to you?” I manage to ask. I congratulate myself for having a rational thought. Woot.

Her voice is halting, and her brow wrinkles as she struggles to button my jeans. “I remember…something was chasing me. Jesus, it hurt…” Her hand comes up to her neck, and she seems to remember, fingering the edges of the wound. “Am I in a hospital?” she asks again.

I suck in a breath. “No. You’re at my house.” It’s not a lie. Not really.

She scans the room, as if registering the sight of the cadavers. “You’re the girl whose parents run the funeral home. The Ghoul Girl.”

“It’s gonna be okay,” I tell her.

“Why am I here?” Her breath makes ghosts in the cold air.

“The Sheriff found you, alongside the road.” That’s true also, even if not the whole truth. “I think we should get you upstairs, so you can talk to my parents…”

She shakes her head, and her dark hair slaps across her face. “No. I…Oh my god. I’m here because…somebody thought I was dead?”

I swallow hard. “Yeah.”

Her hands press to the wound on her side. “But I’m not dead!”

“I…uh…I think we need to get you to the hospital.” I tentatively reach toward her, to grasp her arm and guide her upstairs, toward the light of the much more civilized parlor and rational discussion. This is so far over my head, and I need my parents to handle it.

She shakes her head. “No. No. No.”

I hold her elbow gently, trying to keep her calm until I can get her upstairs to my parents. Her skin radiates cold through the sweatshirt, and I can see that the edges of her neck wound are dry, not seeping so much as a hint of blood. “Come with me.” I open the door and gently lead her into the lab, as if I’m herding a frightened cat. She gazes at the stainless-steel equipment. “I was here. I remember being here.”

“Come upstairs,” I urge, struggling to keep my composure. I use all the empathy that I’ve learned, dealing with grieving family members, trying to understand the shock and lead her away from the Body Shop.

She squints up at the buzzing light. “You were here, weren’t you? You and that woman. Looking at me.”

“My mother,” I say. I’m thinking crap crap crap. I’ve heard of cases of people whose vitals have dropped far beyond detection, who have awoken in hospital morgues. This has never happened to us. Not ever. Oh shit. The other body. Maybe it the same thing…

“The woman with that knife…” Her fingers go to her sternum, where my mother’s scalpel had rested. All of a sudden, Amanda becomes rooted in place, as immovable as a mountain.

“No one’s going to hurt you,” I promise. “Let me make you some coffee.”

She shakes her head, and I feel her trembling. Her eyes slide to the back door.

She slips from my grip. Before I can stop her, she rushes to the back door. She slams it open with a sound like a gunshot and plunges into the darkness.

About the Author:
Laura Bickle grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in Sociology-Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs. Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016.
More information about Laura’s work can be found at 
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It was Spooktacular having you with us today.  Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with Flesh!

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Interview with K.A. Emmons Author of The Blood Race

Give a warm welcome to K.A. Emmons, author of The Blood Race Trilogy. Today we are taking a look at the first two books, The Blood Race and Worlds Beneath.
Pull up a chair, grab a drink of your choice from the cooler, a Chocolate Chip or Peanut Butter cookie from the plate, and let’s find out a little about K.A and The Blood Race trilogy.
What defines you as an author? As a person? Are they one in the same?

That’s an excellent question. I truly think that what defines me as a person and as a writer are definitely one and the same… for me, writing is simply part of who I am. It’s how I understand myself and the world around me. Writing is how I think and live. It helps me in every imaginable way. I’m a very faith-oriented person, and my writing is much the same; the stories I weave create themselves, springing from this idea that anything is possible, and that we are innately powerful beings with limitless potential. It’s ideas like these that totally power me as a person, and as a writer.

Did you tell friends and family that you were writing a book? Or did it take a while to come out and tell friends and family you were a writer?

I’ve been writing seriously since I was around 11 years old, and my family was actually instrumental in inspiring and encouraging me to write. I have incredibly inspiring artists for parents, and they were always motivating me to find my own path and pursue my dreams in unconventional ways. On top of that, my sister and I have always been very close. She’s a writer herself, and we spent most of our childhood sitting around our family’s dining room table with pots of tea and ink on our fingers; scribbling away at some new story idea.

What do you want your readers to take away from your books?

If even one of my readers takes away this idea that we are powerful and made for so much, well, I’d be thrilled. In my stories and characters I see a common race toward something bigger – a concept that fills me: that we are far more powerful than we realize, and that, no matter who we are, or where we come from, there is a warrior inside each and every single one of us, just waiting to break out.

Where do your story ideas come from? If they come to you in the middle of the night, do you get up and write them all down?

Ideas typically come flying at me like a rabid goose from out of left field, and I’m frightfully notorious for never writing anything down. I’m a brooder, so I typically just spend 90% of my time and energy thinking about the story and turning it round in my mind like a gem until the story is written and finished. I’ve always been fascinated by the illusive randomness of inspiration, actually – and how it often does come out of “nowhere”.

 

Tell us a little about The Blood Race:
All Ion Jacobs ever wanted was to be normal. But when you’re capable of killing with your very thoughts, it’s hard to blend in with the crowd.
Running from his past and living in fear of being discovered, Ion knows he will never be an average college student. But when Hawk, the beautiful, mysterious girl next door unearths his darkest secret, Ion’s life is flipped upside-down. He’s shocked to discover a whole world of people just like him — a world in another dimension, where things like levitation, shape-shifting, and immortality are not only possible… they’re normal.
Forced to keep more secrets than ever before, Ion struggles to control his powers in the real world while commuting between realms — until his arch enemy starts a fight he can’t escape. Now he has sealed the fate of the Dimension, severing their connection to the real world, and locking himself inside forever. But a deadly threat hidden in plain sight may cost Ion more than just his freedom — it may cost him his life.
The Blood Race is the first book in K.A. Emmons’ riveting new sci-fi/fantasy thriller series. If you like epic urban fantasy, fresh takes on super powers, deep allegories, raw emotions and intricate plots that surprise you at every turn, you’ll love the first novel in Emmons’ page-turning series.

 




A peek between the pages of  The Blood Race, Book One:
I had no idea
where I was or who I was really speaking to, in fact. Up until the car
incident, Sensei had simply been “the crazy old guy next door.” Now he was
beginning to feel like my only connection to sanity. I had no reason to trust
him, but something in me gravitated towards it.
“Sensei, how did
you know about me?” I asked. “Hawk said that you’ve been watching me—how did
you find me? How did you know about my powers?”
His deep-set
eyes studied my face. “You still have not answered the question.”
I held his gaze
for a moment, then let go of a sigh. “I don’t know the answer to your question.
I don’t even know who I am.”
“Would you like
to know who you are?” I nodded slightly.
“Then that is
the answer to the question,” he said. “You wish to learn who you really are.
Where you have come from. And it is for that reason that you have been brought
here.”
“But why?” I
asked.
“Because you
were created to protect that which is to come, Ion.”
I thought about
it for a moment before shaking my head. “I don’t get it.” “Every generation to
walk the earth has, hidden within its repetition and
pattern, a few
who will resist. A few who will realize that they are inherently different from
others,” Sensei replied. “Most will follow the pattern cut through the density
of the forest, because they are afraid to stray from that which is familiar.
But a few will stray—the anomalies. Those who recognize their own powers and
allow their abilities to guide them.”
There was that
word again. The word that had provoked me to the point of driving a knife
through Hawk’s hand only hours before. Coming from him, though, it didn’t have
the same effect.
“I created this
dimension to protect you. Because you are the only ones who have awakened to
protect the future from what it has become.”
“How do you know
what the future is going to be like?” I asked. “You talk about it like it
already exists.”
“Because,” he
said, “I have seen it.” “You’ve seen the future?”
Sensei nodded.
“So this whole…”
I looked for the right word. “Dimension. You created it?”
“I am it.”
I stared at him.
“Wait, what?”
“When you healed
Hawk, when you altered reality with your very thoughts, you projected that
which is within you into that which is without. When you practice that for
eternity, this,” he gestured towards our surroundings, “is the result.”
“You’ve found
every one of us… every one of the anomalies?” “From past, present, and future.”
My head was
starting to hurt.
“You were the
one who fixed my face, weren’t you.” It wasn’t a question. Sensei nodded. “I
could imagine how much it hurt.”
“Yeah, well. You
imagined correctly.” I laughed mirthlessly. “God, this is
insane.”
“It is your
choice to make, Ion. Hawk will teach you how to utilize the portals, and you
may come and go.” He folded his hands. “Or you may return to your world
permanently—but you must tell no one what we have discussed or what you have
seen here.”

 

“I want to
stay,” I said, without hesitation, surprising myself.
 
 

 

 

Tell us a bit about the second book, Worlds Beneath:
I used to think that seeing was believing, but now, as I struggle to stay alive below the ravine, I begin to realize that – good or bad – I will see whatever I believe.
“Who are you, Icarus, that the earth opens its mouth to receive your blood?” Sensei’s words were my last thoughts before I fell into the bottomless ravine, plunging toward my own death, and bringing about Hawk’s at the same time. Or so I thought.
I woke up underwater. I awoke in a strange and unfamiliar world, filled with maze-like forest, shadows, and nightmares seemingly as vivid and dangerous as reality. I had no idea who I was, or how I got there – I couldn’t remember anything, until I remembered her: Hawk. The other half of my soul.
 
I knew that in order for her to stay alive, I had to survive and find a way out. But that’s easier said than done when you’re trapped in a realm as deadly as your every thought – and dominated by a hierarchy of ravenous wolf packs.
Alerted by a dream, I realize that Hawk has left the Dimension to come find me. For an instant, I rediscover hope. But that hope quickly burns to ash when I realize that we may not be the only ones down here. Someone else with a thirst for her blood may have survived the fall too. And I may have just lured her right into the jaws of a predator even fiercer than the wolves.
 
 

A peek between the pages of Worlds Beneath, Book Two:

I would be lying
if I said I wasn’t scared. The very things that were potential beacons of hope
were also bright red warning flags. There was no way for me to know what I was
walking into.
I waited until
nightfall. Until the sky was dark and the stars were like sparkling pinpricks
in satin overhead. I watched him light a fresh fire after failing to rekindle
the last, using two rocks. It reminded me of my own newly acquired ability to
channel fire. When I thought about it, I could practically feel the heat
tingling in the tips of my wings.
He sat down,
cross-legged, by the fire, and the black wolves dispersed into the woods,
seeming on edge as the starlight flickered down through the trees. I heard
distant howls on occasion.
The young man’s
features were illuminated by the crackling fire. He seemed to have all but
forgotten I was there. He held a small journal in his hand and seemed to be
writing or making a sketch with charcoal.
Finally, he rose
again and went inside the shelter, and the opportunity for me to make my
entrance presented itself.
I left the
branch and flew several yards into the forest. I landed softly on the ground
below and transformed back into my human form. I didn’t want him to know I
could shift; that had to remain a secret.
I straightened
my clothes and took a shaky breath.
I slowed to a
halt at the very edge of the clearing, waiting to see if and when he would
emerge from the shelter. When he didn’t, I finally stepped forward into the
clearing.
I walked farther
in towards the flickering shades of yellow and orange. The snap of a twig under
my foot disrupted the chorus of crickets and the distant, occasional howls. It
was enough to cause an audible stir from within the shelter. A moment later the
curtain parted. The dark eyes met mine from across the flames. He stared at me
like someone who hadn’t seen another living soul in a hundred years.
He stepped out
completely. The connection between our eyes didn’t falter.
“Who are you?”
he asked, in a curious voice edged with an accent. “Where did you come from?”
I pulled in a
deep breath, debating what kind of cover story to give.
“The wolves,” I
replied slowly. “I followed one of the black wolves, and it led me here.”
I swallowed,
watching his expression closely. “Where exactly is this place?” I asked.
He stared at me
for a moment longer, seeming puzzled by the question, and then he looked around
us. “Must everything have a name?” He seemed to be musing more than asking. “It
is reality. I know nothing beyond it.”
“Nothing?” I
questioned. “You’ve always lived here?” He nodded. “It certainly feels like
it.”
“Are you alone
here?” He nodded again. “How is that possible?”
He shrugged,
turning his attention back to me. “Could I not ask the same of you?”
He could indeed.
I struggled to
come up with something to say.
“I awoke in a
place like this, but covered in snow.” I thought back to the tunnel in the
embankment. “And then the wolf led me here. The wolves you talk to.”
He studied me a
moment longer and then smiled. “I talk to them because they are mine.”
“Yours?”
He knelt beside
the fire, picking up the journal and closing it. “It is hard for you to
understand, but if you stay, you will learn that no one knows where exactly
this place is.”
He paused to
pick up a stick with which he began prodding the fire. “And no one knows how to
leave,” he said, seeming to muse once more to himself. “Or should I say,
escape.”

 

I watched him
for a moment. “I don’t want to stay.” “You wish to find your way home, then?”
 
 
About the Author:
When she’s not hermiting away in her colorfully-painted home office writing her next science fiction, passionate story-teller Kate Emmons is probably working on the nonprofit organization she founded, Blue Freedom. An organization designed to teach students and young adults about whales and dolphins and the importance of keeping them in the wild.
Katie’s other passions include traveling, hiking, and surfing, which she also loves to blog about.
She lives in the often-snowy hills of rugged Vermont with her husband and dog named Rocket.

 

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It was wonderful having you with us today.  Please feel free to stop by anytime. Good Luck with The Blood Race Trilogy!

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